


Of Lame Boyfriends and Hypothetical Cats

by nikkiRA



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Rated for swearing, dumb dorks doing dumb dorky things, i am secretely solangelo TRASH, nico is a huge dumb dork, stupid lame unnecessary fluff, total and utter trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 04:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3836884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We should get a cat.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Lame Boyfriends and Hypothetical Cats

“We should get a cat.”

Nico turns his head to look at the boy beside him. Will is shirtless, the blankets pulled up around his waist. He is grinning up at the ceiling.

“What?”

“A cat. We should get a cat.”

Nico sighs. “We can’t get a cat.”

“Why not?”

“Where are we going to _keep_ it? I live at Camp full time. The harpies would eat it.” Will looks horrified. “Why do you even want a cat?”

“I don’t know.” Will looks embarrassed. “It just kind of seems… symbolic.”

“Symbolic of _what?”_

Will chews his lip. “I dunno. Of like… domesticity, or something. Commitment.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. “Are you implying we’re not committed?”

They are eighteen years old; three years ago Will had angrily kissed Nico during capture the flag and Nico has never quite forgiven him for making them lose that game. Will huffs.

“Obviously not. But I think it would be… I don’t know. Like the next step.”

“A cat.”

“Yes.”

“The next step of this relationship is a _cat.”_

“Yes! Besides, you remind me of a cat.”

“ _Why?_ ”

Will rolls over onto his side and rests his head on Nico’s shoulder. “You act all aloof and independent but secretly you’re a hugely affectionate, romantic sap.”

Nico looks incredibly offended. “I am _not.”_

“You’re a huge dorky sap.”

“Get out of my bed, Solace.”

“A huge, cuddly, lovable –” Will laughs as Nico tries to shove him off the bed.

“Be quiet, idiot, before you let the whole camp know you’re here.”

“The whole camp already knows I’m here.”

“Chiron doesn’t, and that’s the most important part.”

Will presses kisses to Nico’s shoulder. “So that’s a no to the cat?”

“Yes, Will, that’s a no to the cat.”

“Spoil sport.” Will seems legitimately upset. Nico sighs and decides to play along.

“Hypothetically, if we were to get a cat, what would we even call it?”

Will sits up. “Does that mean we’re getting a cat?”

“Do you understand the meaning of the word hypothetically?”

Will slumps back down beside him. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of a name. What do you think?”

Nico snorts. “What do I think we should name our hypothetical, definitely-going-to-be-eaten-by-harpies cat?”

“Yeah.”

Nico thinks. A few years ago he would have deemed this whole conversation stupid and would have refused to even humour Will, but three years of dating a son of Apollo is guaranteed to change you a little. “I don’t know. Fluffy?”

“You are so unoriginal.”

“I don’t see you with any better ideas!”

Will thinks for a moment. Nico has absentmindedly started drawing circles on the arm slung across his chest. “Princess Death.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a mixture of both of us!”

“Since when are you _princess?”_

“ _You’re_ princess, dummy.”

Nico laughs. “I hate you. We are not naming our Hypothetical Cat Princess Death.”

“You are such a wet blanket.”

“I love you too, Solace.”

Will sighs deeply and buries his head into Nico’s shirt. Nico listens to him breathe for a few minutes before taking an educated guess and saying, “Will. What is this really about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t start.”

Will sighs and sits up, leaning against the headboard. “I’m just… scared.”

Nico sits up, too, back against the headboard, shoulder pushed against Will’s. “Scared of what?”

“College.”

Nico looks at him in confusion. “What about it?”

Will waves his hands around, like he’s trying to grasp onto something. “I don’t know, it’s just… that’s when stuff changes! That’s what always happens, someone goes away to college and the other one doesn’t and you start drifting apart and I was afraid that would happen with us and I figured a cat would be able to keep us together. It would be like… a connection.”

Nico chews his lip. Will was going away to college after the summer, and Nico was not; Nico hadn’t even really thought about college, mainly because he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do with his life. Chiron had been helping him, though, and he was looking into things, and he was thinking he would apply for next year. But for now Will was leaving and Nico was not. Nico would be lying if he said he wasn’t also feeling the slightest bit of concern. For some reason it felt different then when Will went home; like a bigger change, more permanent, and infinitely more terrifying.

“We don’t need a cat to keep us together,” he says, slowly. Will leans his head back. “That’s not… I’m still going to want to see you, even if we don’t have a goddamn cat.”

“I just kind of figured having a cat would be more solid.”

“Do you not think we’re solid enough?”

“I just thought that if we had a cat and anyone ever asked me any questions I could just say, ‘oh, yeah, I have a cat with my boyfriend,’ and you would always be there and be present.”

Nico’s throat feels very constricted. “Do you… do you think you need the cat to remind yourself about us?”

“What? No. _No.”_ He grips Nico’s hand. “I’m just – I’m afraid.” He takes a breath. “I’m afraid you’re going to get distant again. That you’re going to think the worst and drift away from me and I figured if we had a cat you wouldn’t be able to.”

Nico stays quiet for a long time. Then he shoves Will off the bed.

“What the _hell –”_

“You are a goddamn idiot.”

Will sits up and glares up at Nico on the bed. “So I deserve to be shoved off the bed?”

“Yes.”

Will stands up and sits back on the bed. “Nico –”

Nico shuts him up the best way he knows how, pulling him to him and kissing him. Will grips him as if he’s going to float away.

“I’m not going to get distant,” he whispers.

“But what if –”

“ _Will._ I am not going to get distant. I promise.”

Will sighs against Nico’s mouth. “But what if –”

“No.”

“But what –”

“ _No.”_

“Okay.”

Nico nods. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“This is not the goddamn Fault in Our Stars Solace I am not playing this game with you.” Will laughs and subtly – though not subtly enough that Nico doesn’t notice – pushes him backwards.

“Fair enough,” he mutters, maneuvering on top of Nico, who smirks.

“Are we good?”

“Mm,” Will replies. “Stop talking.”

* * *

“This was a bad idea.”

“No, it wasn’t. Stop worrying so much.”

“No it was stupid and dumb and I never should have done it.”

“Nico.” Annabeth sighs. “It’s not stupid. It’s sweet.”

“I don’t _do_ sweet, Annabeth.”

“Then what do you call this?”

“A horribly bad idea.”

Annabeth rolls her eyes. “Honestly, you’re being ridiculous. Just _do_ it, Nico.”

“Sure, Nike.”

Annabeth shoves him in the direction of the Apollo cabin. " _Go_ _.”_

He sighs. He had asked Annabeth for help because he figured she would be the most helpful; the drawback of that is she’s the least likely to let him back out of the plan.

He knocks on the door of the Apollo cabin. He can hear through the door what sounds like a sing-along set to One Direction songs. He knocks louder.

The door swings open. A younger camper opens it; judging from the look on his face when he sees Nico, he hasn’t been here long enough to learn not to be afraid of him.

“Will!” He shouts back into the room. “Your creepy boyfriend is here!”

Nico grimaces. Will appears, grinning. “Hi, creepy boyfriend.”

Nico scratches his nose. “Yeah. Hi. Can I talk to you? Preferably somewhere where I don’t have to listen to One Direction?”

“Still reeling over the loss of Zayn, huh?”

“Hey!” Comes a loud shout from inside before Nico gets a chance to deny this accusation. “What are the house rules?”

“It’s still a touchy subject here,” Will whispers conspiratorially.

“I can imagine,” he says drily. Will smiles.

“All right, then, let’s go.” He slips his hand into Nico’s and pulls him away from the cabin. Nico can still hear singing.

“I can’t believe that out of all of the people at the camp I could have gotten involved with I chose the one who hosts sing-alongs.”

Will laughs. “Don’t think I don’t see that bag, di Angelo. What’s up?”

He is cursing Annabeth Chase to the moon and back right now, but there’s no escaping this conversation. Nico drags Will to the woods, sitting down on a fallen tree. “Okay. I had an idea, and so I followed through with the idea, and now I’m super regretting the idea but I would bet money on the fact that Annabeth is hiding around here somewhere watching to make sure I go through with this.”

Will raises an eyebrow. “O-kay.”

Sending one more curse Annabeth’s way, Nico hands him the bag. “I thought – I thought that I could get you this for now and it could be sort of like a promise but now I’m thinking it was just a really stupid idea and gods above I am going to kill Annabeth Chase.” He says this sentence as fast as possible and then tries to grab the bag out of Will’s hand. “Never mind this was dumb please give me the bag back and forget this ever happened.”

Will holds the bag out of Nico’s reach. “Nice try, di Angelo.”

Nico buries his head in his hands and debates opening up the ground to swallow him whole.

He thought it had been a good idea, and so had Annabeth when he had told her, and together they had gone out and now that he was thinking back on it, it was such a stupid idea and Will was going to think he was an idiot and probably make fun of him for the rest of his goddamn life –

“Nico.” Beside him, Will’s voice is quiet. Nico doesn’t look up; instead he tries to figure out if shadow jumping away from here would be worth Will’s anger.

“Nico. Would you look at me?”

Nico doesn’t. Instead he says, into his hands, “I’m sorry I know I’m an idiot let’s just forget I ever did this –”

With much more force than Nico thinks is necessary for the situation Will drags his hands away from his face and roughly drags Nico towards him, pushing his lips against Nico’s. Will’s hand entangles in his hair and he kisses him hard, the fingers of his other hand gripping the present. Nico has never been kissed this way; Will isn’t exactly the rough type, but now he kisses Nico with a ferocity Nico didn’t know he had, and quite frankly he’s afraid he’s going to faint because of it.

“Nico,” he whispers, finally; Nico’s lips feel bruised. “Nico,” he says again, but this time it’s more of a laugh. “You dummy. This is the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

“I wouldn’t go that –” A long time ago Will learned that if Nico was about to say something he didn’t want to hear he could just kiss him and more often than not Nico would forget what he was saying. He hasn’t exactly used that power for good.

In Will’s hand is a stuffed cat that, it seems to Nico, is staring at him, mocking him for this moment of utter lameness. It would be the stand in, he tells Will, until they can get a real cat (Nico doesn’t even know if he likes cats, to be honest, but he’s way too far into this now to ever admit that). A sign that Nico wasn’t going to drift.

“It’s Princess Death the first.”

 _“No_ it is not.”

“Oh come on!”

“No.”

“It’s just a stuffed animal! Nico!”

“You called it the _first,_ that means you are expecting there to be _more than one._ ”

“You,” Will says, kissing him again. “Are no fun.”

“That’s me. No Fun Nico.”

They kiss again, until someone clears their throat. “Well, I’m going to excuse myself from this before I am forced to see something I very much do not want to see.”

“I _knew_ you were spying on me.”

“I needed to make sure you were going to go through with it!” Annabeth smiles, waving at them as she walks away. “Oh,” she says, turning back. “For the record, I think Princess Death is a _great_ name.”

Nico flips her off while beside him, Will whoops.

Later, in Nico’s cabin, after a significantly long time where there was no talking at all, Will (naked and beautiful and still clutching that fucking cat) smirks at Nico and says, “I told you.”

“Told me what?”

“I told you that no matter how tough you like to act you’re nothing more than a big lame _romantic._ ”

“You take that back.”

“Or what? You’re going to love me to death?”

Nico is laughing and trying to pretend that he isn’t. “I despise you. I hate you more than I have ever hated anyone –”

“Don’t worry,” Will says, cutting Nico off rather effectively by climbing on top of him. “Your secret is safe with me. The only other person who knows is Princess Death the First.”

“I have the receipt. I will bring that fucking cat back I swear to _God_.”

“I dare you, di Angelo.”

Nico groans. “I am going to regret this decision for the rest of my life.”

“Probably.”

Will kisses down his neck. Nico turns his head and sees the fucking cat plushie staring right at him.

“Will. It’s looking at me.”

“It loves you.”

“It’s mocking me.”

“You’re so touchy.”

Nico smirks. “So then touch me.”

Will complies.


End file.
